2013 •
Health Sciences

Stimulation of the primary motor cortex for pain modulation using an animal model

Abstract

New Zealand rabbits were anesthetized and skull openings made to record neuronal ACC activity and for MCS. Then, anesthesia was reduced so that the rabbit was unconscious and not perceiving pain but spinal reflexes returned allowing neuron activity recording with microelectrodes in ACC before and after MCS. The stimuli were pressure or electrical current applied to skin or visceral that would produce pain if conscious. Intracortical MCS consisted of 20-100 µA pulses at 200 Hz applied to the motor cortex with bipolar electrodes. All animal procedures followed USDA guidelines and were approved by the NU-IACUC; Protocol #11-1032R